GILTS

Email today from HL - Investing in gilts
Now I have no idea how these things work and as the email suggests, it may not be for me.
Is there a "Learn yourself Gilts for Dummies?

I think their email today relates to a new 5 year gilt at 4.125%

Around 5-8 yrs are offering the lowest yields at present, the 1 yr is 4.77% and then 15 yrs and up look a bit better.

But really no need to buy a newly issued gilt in any case. It isn't like you get much of a discount, if any.

I have noticed yields creeping up this past week, the 20-30 yr getting closer to 5% again, which I wasn't sure we'd see again.
Is this just current inflation expectations or will Labour nationalise everything they can and issue a stack more gilts to pay for it all, if so yields could climb higher?
Then there is the whole reshoring from China thing which would be inflationary on top of all the wars and net zero guff.

I'm with matey from PensionCraft really, prefer buying individual gilts with the intention to hold to maturity, rather than funds/ETFs.
Then you will never lose money in nominal terms, you just might regret not getting in at a better entry point if yields climb after buying.
As it is I'm building up from a 10% to 20% allocation to gilts over the next couple of years, so if anything I'd like yields to go higher.

I haven’t watched the video, but the most important point for me is that any capital gains are free from tax, so for higher rate taxpayers the net yields on some of discounted low-coupon issues are really quite attractive. www.yieldgimp.com, despite the slightly quirky name, shows this really well.

Yes.

Pretty good site here (as posted above) that shows them all.

https://www.yieldgimp.com

Broadly speaking you want the lowest coupon as you may are taxed on the coupon payments.

Sorry this is all new to me so a couple of questions for those who are more knowledgeable

Would this give a straight forward gain from £0.9562 to £1 or are there accrued dividends to add onto the costs?

Are transaction costs negligible to buy and sell gilts?

This is a really useful thread

Quick summary for me

average online dealing charges seems to be £5.00 per trade from the 7 listed companies in the video.
average monthly charge seems to be £3.50

so if I was to purchase gilts and hold to maturity for 5 years then charges would come in at about £215.

thanks stewie - just spoke to Iweb (overseas contact which seemed a bit poor in my mind)
they couldnt tell me what account to open - obviously I'm thinking "share dealing" just poor that it doesnt mention guilts.
do you know if there is a phone app as well?

No need for a whole book.

Gilts are UK government debt, rightly viewed as being the safest possible investment in terms of credit risk; the government will not default on debt denominated in GBP.

Buyers of a gilt get a coupon each six months and then get their money back in full on the maturity date.